An attempt is made to share the truth regarding issues concerning Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish nation. This blog has expanded to present information about radical Islam and its potential impact upon Israel and the West. Yes, I do mix in a bit of opinion from time to time.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

"Palestine" as a Source of International Dysfunction

The world heritage program of
UNESCO, which was a mechanism for driving governments to preserve
valuable sites, has become a mechanism for their neglect. There is no
plan for the Church of the Nativity, and the Palestinian Authority is
relieved of the obligation to formulate one. The state of the church
will deteriorate precisely because it has been registered as a world
heritage site.

The phenomenon of "Palestine" is becoming a misfortune for any
international institution in which it crops up. This is because those
institutions are governed by councils whose members are states. Whenever
"Palestine" is on the agenda, these states vote according to the
policies of their respective governments, regardless of any principles
that are supposed to guide the institution in question.
The oldest example is of course UNWRA. Whereas all other refugee
problems in the world are dealt with by UNHCR, which seeks to reduce the
numbers of refugees, Palestinian refugees are in the hands of UNWRA,
whose function is to multiply their numbers.
The most recent example is the recognition of "Palestine" as a
non-member state by the General Assembly of the United Nations. In
reality, there is an independent state of Hamasistan in Gaza and a
semi-independent fiefdom of Abbasistan (aka the Palestinian Authority,
PA) in the West Bank. For years they have had nothing in common, apart
from the distant aspiration of destroying Israel.
According to Palestinian reports,
the latest attempted reconciliation between the respective leaders was
also ineffective: "Each side… is happy with the status quo." To call
Gaza and the West Bank collectively "Palestine" is an anachronism. This
is why "Palestine" will be written here in inverted commas.
Yes, both Gaza and the West Bank contain people who call themselves
"Palestinians," but by "Palestine" they mean the whole area, including
Israel. So the continuing babble about a "two-state solution," Israel
and Palestine, when the three-state solution has already arrived, is simply befuddling minds worldwide.
Leaving those examples aside for a moment, let us examine a case that
reveals how "Palestine"-driven confusion is ruining one of the
better-run UN institutions. It is the recent decision of the governing
council of UNESCO to recognize the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
as a world heritage site.
Unfortunately, the nature of the issue was obscured by the behavior
of the governments of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Both of
them treated such recognition as a trophy to be hung on the wall and
gazed at with admiration. In fact, it is nothing of the kind. On the
contrary, it consists of a severe obligation imposed upon the government
responsible for the site.
As to which government that would mean, the answer is unambiguous: it
could only be the government in Ramallah, since Bethlehem lies in Area A
of the West Bank, the administration of which Israel relinquished to
the PA rule long ago. UNESCO's rules oblige it to register a site under
an entity that controls the site.
For instance, UNESCO agreed to Jordan's request to register the Old
City of Jerusalem in 1981, although only one state in the world,
Pakistan, had ever recognized Jordanian sovereignty in Jerusalem. What
counted for UNESCO was not international recognition but rather that in
1981 the Jordanian Waqf was still permitted by Israel to run affairs on
the Temple Mount; thus Jordan was a relevant party. In adopting the
proposal, however, UNESCO insisted that "nothing in the present
decision, which is aimed at the safeguarding of the cultural heritage of
the Old City of Jerusalem, shall in any way affect the relevant United
Nations resolutions and decisions, in particular the relevant Security
Council resolutions on the legal status of Jerusalem."
The issue, then, was whether the Ramallah government could fulfill
the obligation demanded by UNESCO's rules. Specifically, it had to
convince the secretariat of UNESCO that it had a comprehensive plan for
the maintenance of the church, for ensuring its accessibility to
visitors, etc.
The UNESCO Secretariat does not take those decisions on its own; it
commissions other expert bodies to evaluate such plans. In this
instance, the body chosen was the International Commission on Monuments and Sites
(ICOMOS), which was well-acquainted with the West Bank, since it was
already involved in the preservation of other sites there. In its comprehensive report,
ICOMOS urged refusal to recognize the Church of the Nativity as a world
heritage site because the PA had totally failed to fulfill the
necessary requirements.
UNESCO provides for two paths to recognition as a world heritage
site: the normal path and the emergency path. The normal path, as
mentioned, requires the government controlling the site to submit a
comprehensive plan satisfying all kinds of criteria. ICOMOS ruled that
the PA had made no serious attempt whatsoever to formulate such a plan;
it had not even supplied an adequate description of the site. ("No
detailed plans of these complexes have been provided.")
It is worth reading the whole ICOMOS report in order to grasp the
abysmal incompetence of the PA officials. Paragraph after paragraph ends
with a statement that essential information was missing.
Indeed, the PA had barely pretended to have such a plan. Rather, it
had bet upon the emergency path, according to which a site can be
recognized even without a plan if it is in serious danger. The PA
claimed that "the Israeli occupation" (which ended in Bethlehem in 1995)
was imperiling the site. ICOMOS dismissed all that; it noted that there
had been a problem of a leak in the roof of the church, but the roof
had been repaired adequately by Israel before it handed over Bethlehem
to Palestinian control.
So the agenda of the Council of UNESCO contained a recommendation,
based on the ICOMOS report, that recognition of the Church of the
Nativity be deferred until the PA came up with an adequate comprehensive
plan. Nevertheless, the member states voted for recognition by a
majority of 13-6. That is, there is no plan for the site and the PA is
relieved of the obligation to formulate one.
ICOMOS had concluded: "ICOMOS considers that the main threats to the
property are lack of conservation of the Church of the Nativity and
possibly lack of maintenance and repair of the wider complex. Largely
unregulated tourism and development pressures are combining to destroy
key elements of the urban fabric that provides the context for the
Church and monasteries and to impact on its spiritual qualities." The
decision of the Council of UNESCO means that nothing will be done about
these problems, since the PA has no further interest in the matter. The
state of the church will deteriorate precisely because it has been
registered as a world heritage site.
But the damage does not stop here. The ICOMOS report notes that the
PA has further schemes in mind: "The nomination dossier states that a
second nomination will include the Historic Town of Bethlehem, which
forms the Buffer Zone for the current nomination, and that further
nominations could include the Historic Town of Beit Sahour, the
Shepherds' Field, Beit Sahour, and Mar Saba Monastery in the Desert to
the east. The link between these sites will be their association with
the story of the birth and life of Jesus."
This, too, was rejected out of hand by ICOMOS. "The World Heritage
Committee has indicated on several occasions that the link between
component sites of a serial nomination should not be one person." We may
assume, however, that when the time comes round the Council of UNESCO
will accept any further requests in the name of "Palestine."
Thus the UNESCO Council has driven a horse and carriage through the
whole process of approving world heritage sites. Other states can now
use this precedent for demanding recognition of sites without any plan.
The world heritage program of UNESCO, which was a mechanism for driving
governments to preserve valuable sites, has become a mechanism for their
neglect.
Non-member states recognized by the UN General Assembly can apply to
enter other UN bodies. So "Palestine" can be expected to wreak similar
havoc in them too. It is enough to recall how the UN mechanisms for
investigating human rights violations have been clogged up by repetitive
debates about "Palestine," while all the world's major systematic
violators of human rights rarely reach the agenda, let alone incur
condemnation.
As for UNWRA, its follies have been exposed afresh by a series of articles in the Fall 2012 issue of the Middle East Quarterly. But there is one looming folly that nobody has noticed. According to UNWRA rules,
refugee status is bequeathed in the male line to all descendants, even
if none of the mothers had that status. Sooner or later, it will be
urged that restricting this status to patrilineal descent violates the
rights of women. Then not just one but any of your eight
great-grandparents will be able to make you a Palestinian refugee. Those
rules, by the way, allow various sorts of persons who have some
connection to a Palestinian refugee to register for UNWRA services even
without being refugees themselves. Moreover, women's rights is an area
where much commendable activity is currently going on among the
Palestinians; the pages of Al-Quds constantly feature such initiatives. So there is great potential here for UNWRA to expand even further.
An elaborate "Palestine" folly (71 pages) in another field was the advisory opinion on Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
issued by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in July 2004.
The court insisted (section 69) that it could call Israel's security
barrier a "wall" throughout this document, despite acknowledging
(section 82) that: "The approximately 180 kilometres of the complex
completed or under construction... included some 8.5 kilometres of
concrete wall. These are generally found where Palestinian population
centres are close to or abut Israel (such as near Qalqiliya and Tulkarm
or in parts of Jerusalem)."
The US judge on the court, Thomas Buergenthal, argued cogently in his minority report
that the court should have declined to consider the case and that the
parts of Israel's security barrier that ran inside the West Bank were
not ipso facto illegal. The other fourteen judges declared that that
those parts were illegal, claimed that Israel's right to self-defense
could in no way justify them, and called for their quick demolition.
With the exception of Judge Pieter Kooijmans of the Netherlands, they
also called upon "all states" to "ensure compliance by Israel."
Fortunately, the view of the court was generally ignored. But let us
note what the distinguished judges were trying to prevent. The security
barrier became a major factor in ending the plague of Palestinian
suicide bombers, doubtless saving hundreds of lives and thousands more
from severe injuries. Tourists started to flow back not just to Israel
but also to the Palestinian areas. In Jerusalem and Bethlehem,
Arab-owned hotels reopened and Arab merchants were back in business.
Many thousands of Arabs employed in the Israeli tourist industry also
returned to work. The restoration of security enabled Israel to
dismantle gradually most of the network of checkpoints in the West Bank,
facilitating the recent rapid growth of the Palestinian economy All
this and more because the court's zeal for "justice" and "Palestine" was
disregarded.
The economic revival in the West Bank, alas, is another example of
how "Palestine" is exempt from normal rules. It is fueled largely by
foreign donors. An employee of one of them has assured me that eighty
percent of the economic activity there is donor-dependent.
That the percentage is large is confirmed by a comparison between
Israel and "Palestine" in respect of trade with the EU. The European
Commission's figures for Israel
show that in 2011 bilateral trade in goods amounted to €29.4 billion
and that in 2010 (the latest figures available) bilateral trade in
services was some €7 billion, with a balance in Europe's favor of €4.2
billion and about €1 billion respectively. Also in 2010, EU firms had
invested €5.3 billion in Israel but Israeli ones had invested a whopping
€22.3 in the EU. The figures for the "Occupied Palestinian Territory"
are merely €0.1 billion imported from the EU and next to nothing
exported to it. For that matter, UN data record that in 2009 the total
imports and exports of the "Occupied Palestinian Territory" amounted to
about $3.5 billion (77.6% from Israel) and $0.5 billion (89.4% to
Israel) respectively.
On the other hand, according to EU data:
"From 1994 to the end of 2011, the European Union committed
approximately €5 billion in assistance to the Palestinians through
various geographical and thematic instruments." As for last year: "Early
in 2012, the European Union frontloaded €156 million for the
Palestinian Authority's recurrent expenditures. Further allocations in
2012 included €11 million for the private sector reconstruction, €25
million for infrastructure development in Gaza and Area C, €27.5 million
for institution-building projects in support of the Palestinian
Authority and a further €8 million for projects in East Jerusalem."
To all that, add money from individual European governments, money
supplied via NGOs, European support for UNWRA and who knows what else.
With so much money flowing in as gifts, "Palestine" can survive without
export industries. It is not that individual Palestinian workers are
lazy. The Jewish settlements in the West Bank pay thousands of
Palestinian workers good wages for work in their industries. The latest gripe
of 22 pro-Palestinian NGOs, including Christian Aid and the British
Methodist Church, is that those industries in the settlements export far
more to the EU than Palestinian-owned ones.
Nor is the problem that Palestinians have no initiative. In other
countries – including Arab ones and also Israel – there are Palestinian
millionaires. Quite a number came back to the country after the Oslo
Accords in the early 1990s, but they gradually left on account of the
incompetence and corruption of the PA. Take "Bethlehem 2000" as an
example. This was an ambitious plan, funded by many countries, to
upgrade the town in time for the millennium. Streets were dug up
everywhere to lay down new infrastructure. Palestinians from abroad
invested in new tourist facilities. The scheme was completed in the
middle of 2000. That same October, the PA under Arafat embarked on the
second intifada and tourism collapsed. End of story.
Despite the flow of foreign money, the PA budget is now once again on
the verge of collapse. It should surprise nobody. On the one hand, the
PA pays salaries to Fatah members living under the government of
Hamasistan and to Palestinian murderers in Israeli prisons. On the other
hand, it has failed to induce Palestinians to accept normal modes of
taxation.
The PA hardly has any tax income except for duties on imports
collected by Israel on its behalf. Just lately, the Israeli government
decided to deduct from those payments the money owed by the PA for
electricity that it buys from Israel and resells to individual
Palestinians. One would have expected the PA to react by trying to
collect the vast sums outstanding in unpaid Palestinian electricity
bills. Instead, the PA thereupon announced that all of those debts to
itself would be canceled!
With that sort of behavior it is no wonder that that the PA is
chronically bankrupt. Instead of making the effort to run its own
financial affairs properly, it calls on donors to bail it out again and
again. And not without reason. Last September, for instance, the EU
promised to double its aid package to the PA.
Now, the World Bank is wont to issue periodic statements ascribing
the precarious nature of the Palestinian economy to Israeli checkpoints
and the like. In fact, the World Bank should rather be rebuking itself
and all the donors for turning the Palestinians into a nation of
international beggars by pouring funds upon them irrespective of their
collective behavior. A cardinal rule of all international aid is to
avoid donor-dependence, but the Palestinians have been given an
unlimited waiver.
"Palestine"-inspired dysfunction is also to be found in the secretive
European financing of pro-Palestinian NGOs, as NGO Monitor has conclusively demonstrated,
and it is becoming rampant in those churches which have foolishly
decided to import the Arab-Israeli conflict into their structures.
Church assemblies fight over "Palestine" year by year, parishes are
split and members leave in despair. Here the biggest culprits are the
World Council of Churches and charities such as Christian Aid. The
systematic mendacity of their propagandistic activities was recently
exposed in a penetrating analysis by Denis MacEoin. But the point need not be pursued further here. See what I have written elsewhere (and about the pernicious Kairos Palestine Document) and especially the excellent studies of Dexter van Zile in CAMERA and in the New English Review. The Protestant Consultation on Israel and the Middle East was recently founded with the aim of restoring sanity in this area.
Finally, let us look at the source of all that dysfunction: the
nature of the PA itself. In light of recognition by the UN General
Assembly, Mahmoud Abbas has proclaimed that the PA will henceforth go
under the name "State of Palestine." The appropriate name is rather
"Abbasistan."
Abbas was President of the PA for exactly four years: from January
2005 to January 2009. For an additional four years, as no elections were
held, he has continued to style himself president. That is, even if
elections had been held and he had been reelected, his second term would
now be over. The PA parliament stopped meeting years ago; new elections
for it are also long overdue. In 2012, local elections were held in the
West Bank; the winners were in many cases opponents of Abbas within Fatah.
Thus Abbasistan is indeed ruled by one self-appointed boss, Abbas,
assisted by his two sons, various personal appointees and a multiplicity
of security services. But the scope of his rule is limited: the foreign
governments who finance the Palestinians have set up, wherever
possible, their own mechanisms of operation so as not to lose money by
giving it to the PA directly. Abbas does make numerous speeches, take
trips abroad and receive pro-Palestinian delegations.
Whether Abbas wants to negotiate with Israel is moot. More likely, as I have explained elsewhere,
he wants recognition as a state on the pre-1967 armistice lines without
making any commitment to Israel, in order then to pursue the next item
on the Palestinian agenda: the "right of return" for Palestinian
refugees. But negotiations with him are pointless in any case, since his
word is not seen as binding by those other factions in the West Bank,
not to speak of Gaza.
Abbasistan is by far the biggest employer in the Palestinian areas.
At least its schoolteachers, one might hope, are doing something useful
in this ever-spreading bureaucracy. But Palestinian education is also
dysfunctional. Whether they are studying Arabic, history or geography,
children hear the same false messages: the Palestinians are Arabs who
have lived here since time immemorial; the Jews have no connection with
the land and there was never a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount; Jesus
was a Palestinian; the Palestinian Christians and Muslims have always
lived together in joyous harmony; there was no Muslim conquest but
rather the Christians welcomed the Muslims as liberators, and so on and
so on.
Above all, children learn that the ultimate mission of Palestinians,
to which all else must be subordinated, is the "right of return" for
Palestinian refugees, the removal of the Jews to other countries and the
expansion of Palestinian rule to the whole land between the Jordan
River and the Mediterranean Sea. To pass the Palestinian matriculation
examination, the Tawjihi, youngsters are required to learn their textbooks by heart and reproduce sections of them verbatim on demand.
Here is where the dysfunction begins. It has already spread to various international institutions, and more are on the agenda.

We are hypocrites and cowards - we take freedom for granted as it is eroding underneath our feet‏

Message to offended Muslims

A GOOD, TRUE STORY NOT KNOWN BY MANY.....Air Force.

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

What happened?

Mark Hasten Tribute Video Touro College

Housing Quiz

The Record-so far...!

CBS special on Bengazi

Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

Sally Nelson

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Islamization on the move

"What we are dealing with is Islamization. Islamization is the imposition of ideological norms in increasing severity. Like Nazification, it transforms a society by remaking it in its own image from the largest to the smallest of details."Daniel Greenfield

Toronto rejects Anti-Israel Ads...

Shrinking Lands

Why Israel opposes international forces in the jordan valley/

/why-israel-opposes-international-forces-in-the-jordan-valley/

Islam is Islam, And That’s It

Back in 2007, when confronted with the phrase “moderate Islam”, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously responded: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading and annotating this video: View video at http://gatesofvienna.net/

There's no racist like a liberal racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vz4PjxSmtoI

Ex-Navy SEAL Drops Bombshell On FOX: Says Government is Creating Conditions to Impose Martial Law R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDuds14OBiE#t=156

American surprise

The Nairobi Mall Massacre

Ninh Chu Ninh Chu

Islam Untied

Platitudes about Islam being a faith of peace are not credible anymore. Islam is only as good as the way its followers practice it; and if they have created killing fields in the name of Islam, then Islam will be recognized by the silence of those who did not speak out when their faith was being massacred to massacre humanity.

AFTERBURNER w/ BILL WHITTLE: The Lynching

What-are you against peace?

Sydney Wake Up The Horrific Muslim Infiltration Of Britain - Luton

Kerry: 'Core Issue of Instability ... Is the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict'‏

Kerry is no friend. By endorsing the "Arab peace initiative" he shows his true intentions and beliefs . And by endorsing linkage he shows that he is either a liar or a fool.Syria is on fire, Egypt is at best incredibly unstable and this is due to Israel? It is out in the open!

A word to left-wing students

In their own words-ru listening?

"The lesson these Islamist groups appear to be drawing from events in Egypt is that democratic engagement with opponents is pointless. And that doesn't bode well for countries with strong Islamist movements..."

Flashback: Obama Admits He Cut Medicare

Another Democratic slogan blown to h....

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

When nations and cultures ignore the early warning signs of the infiltration of radical Islam

The UK has 85 sharia courts. France has over 750 “no go zones,” Muslim enclaves where even French police don’t enter.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKk15KcqNk&feature=email

No such thing as "Islamophobia"

However, if you do not want your positions challenged or criticized or even researched, make up a new "phobia"-shout it long enough and some "people", agenda driven, will use it. Ay, yes, the false term does keep many, many financially rewarded-follow the money.gs don morris, Ph.D.

Khader Adnan: Leader of Islamic jihad or innocent baker?

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.More...

Omar Barghouti's Propaganda at USC on January 12, 2012

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’ -- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.Clare M. Lopez

Americans are opening their eyes

Advertisers fleeing All-American Muslim 'propaganda'The American people are seeing through the propaganda piece that is TLC's All-American Muslim reality/dawah show, and responsible advertisers are fleeing in droves. The show aims to combat a trumped-up problem, "Islamophobia," by presenting Muslims who are just ordinary folk, and

Why Islam is Incompatible with Western Law

Col. Allen West answers a question on muslim terror

Challah's Gaza Rocket Counter

This Month:4Last Month:191

This Year: 562

Total since 2002: 12055

Cease fire Hamas style!!

Thanks http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/

"Islamophobia"

"Islamophobia" was a politically manipulative coinage designed to silence critics of Islamic supremacism.It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia.

10 Unknown West Bank Facts

Liberals Redefine "Extremism" and the "Political Center"

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist.The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Don’t ever call it ‘West Bank’ again

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Who do the territories belong to?

The legal borders of Israel under international law

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror YeminiIn 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state. Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

How Liberals Argue

Hebrew Univ-you rock!!

Judea and Samaria are not "occupied" lands-why?

Judea-Samaria were not only parts of the ancient Jewish homeland but were recognized as part of the Jewish National Home recognized by San Remo and the League of Nations [1920, 1922] and by the UN charter [article 80; 1945].

"Political Correctness."

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."Texas A&M

Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul on the climate issues

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

WHAT Golda Meir actually said...

"When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Golda Meir June 15, 1969: Interview in the UK Sunday Times

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member